Had tom-toms for the last ten years but the new tom toms didn't have grid reference options like they used to have. Brought this garmin after reading the reviews. Just been to south of france and it hasn't took a wrong turn yet. Had tom-toms for the last ten years but the new tom toms didn't have grid reference options like they used to have, and needed that for the campsite addresses. The menu options are different and slightly harder to initially navigate through than other sat navs, but it's all there and not rocket science once you use it for a while.
So great sat nav in all, map update took 30mins on an i5 processor laptop with standard pstn phone line with bt broadband. New french laws have been incorporated as well so the speed cameras now say 'dangerous road' instead.
Bought it so we could use it for our holiday to spain. Very slow to acquire satellites and kept freezing en route. Got us lost numerous times and maps are not up to date. Requested a replacement but, having subsequently read the review about it freezing in france, i'd be sceptical about using it abroad.
Pros
- Excellent and lightweight device
- Well worth the money!
- Slightly disappointed Garmin customer.
- I'm in love with my Gar!
- Unit OK but has some glitches
- Latest unit but not so hot software
Cons
- Maybe I was unlucky
- Not what I expect from Garmin.
- Navigation software can't be trusted & poor handsfree phone performance.
- Replacement Sat Nav
- Sadly, a huge disappointment
Negative Review of Garmin nuvi 2467LM 4.3" Sat Nav with UK and Western Europe Maps, Free Lifetime Map Updates and Bluetooth
Features of Garmin nuvi 2467LM 4.3" Sat Nav with UK and Western Europe Maps, Free Lifetime Map Updates and Bluetooth
- Easy to use bright 4.3" touchscreen sat nav includes preloaded street maps for 24 Western European countries including UK and Ireland
- Free Lifetime Map Updates for Western Europe - ensure you drive with the latest road and Points of Interest information
- Sync with a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone for hands-free calling
- PhotoReal and Bird's Eye Junction View and Active Lane Guidance clearly shows the lane you need to take
- Real Directions™ provide clear guidance using recognisable buildings and landmarks as reference
With free Lifetime map updates, Real Directions for more natural instructions, speed camera alerts, Live capability, hands-free calls and much more, the nüvi 2467LM is an advanced sat nav designed to give you a safer, faster and stress-free journey. Crisp, High Resolution Display, nüvi 2467LM has a 4.3' high resolution display with 'pinch and zoom' capability, so you can quickly get a closer look at any onscreen information. Dual-orientation capabilities allow you to use either horizontally or vertically.
Detailed Maps with Free Updates, nüvi 2467LM arrives loaded with detailed maps of Western Europe. With free lifetime map updates, your routes are sure to reflect the most up-to-date maps, POIs (points of interest) and navigation information. New maps are available for download up to 4 times per year, for the life of your device, with no fees. It is also preloaded with Points of Interest (POIs) such as businesses, shops, restaurants and other destinations. There's no need for you to enter that address information. Just select one-- or many-- and navigate there, quickly and easily. You also have the ability to add custom POIs.
Keep an eye on the latest speed cameras, nüvi 2467LM contains our unique Cyclops Speed Camera system, for real-time, direction-relevant and accurate alerts. The full safety camera database is already pre-loaded on your sat nav. However, you can get regular or one-off updates to ensure you've always got the latest camera locations, so you can drive safely and legally.
Garmin Real Directions with Garmin Real Voice, nüvi 2467LM comes with Garmin's unique Real Navigation. This includes Real Directions that guide like a friend, using recognisable landmarks, buildings and traffic lights. For example you may be advised to 'turn left over tower bridge' or to 'turn right after the cathedral'. Using prominent milestones even on unfamiliar roads means you're not constantly trying to read street names, making your journey much easier and ensures you're never misled. Along with this you also get a more natural sounding voice and realistic images of road signs.
Bluetooth Handsfree Calling, Sync your Bluetooth-enabled phone to nüvi 2467LM for hands-free calling through its integrated microphone and speaker. Safely stow your phone in a glove compartment, pocket or purse and still make and take calls without moving your hands from the steering wheel or your eyes from the road.
Smartphone Link Compatible, Smartphone Link is a free application for Android smartphones. It creates a seamless navigation experience between your compatible Garmin sat nav and your smartphone, enabling them to communicate and share data via Bluetooth. It enables your GPS to receive real time information such as weather, PhotoLive Traffic Cameras, weather and much more. It also shares locations with your Smartphone so you can navigate that last mile to your final destination and back to find your parked car.
Comprehensive Driving Guidance You See and Hear, Active Lane Guidance with voice prompts prepares you to drive through an exit or junction with confidence. As you approach, an animated model uses brightly coloured arrows to indicate the proper lane needed for your route; a friendly voice offers additional help. photoReal junction view realistically displays junctions and road changes along your route, including the surrounding landscape and road signs. Again, arrows indicate the proper lane to be in. For complicated junctions, Bird's Eye junction view offers a detailed ariel picture of the road network, looking down as if from overhead.
More Information at a Glance, nüvi 2467LM keeps your driving map onscreen at all times and additional information appears alongside. For details simply touch the screen. As you drive your route, the 'Up Ahead' feature constantly informs you of nearby services, including restaurants, petrol stations, hospitals and shops. nüvi 2467LM displays speed limit, current speed and accurate time of arrival. With a quick glance, you can read the name of your current street. Garmin Express makes it easy to update maps and software, transfer favourites to and from devices, and install free custom vehicles and voices.
Compare Garmin Sat Navs,
Box Contains Garmin nuvi 2467LMVehicle Power CableVehicle Suction Cup MountUSB CableQuick Start Manual
Well Worth the Money!. We bought this to replace our old garmin as we were about to go to poland, by road, for the first time. Amazingly you can put in your destination, which was across five countries (england, france, belgium, holland, germany and poland) and it will just find the shortest route. It not only tells you, as do the others, to turn right or left but gives you the name of the street too. The only negative is that it sees delays on the route (anywhere on the 12 hour route) and asks you if you would like to take an alternative route. At first we were taking the alternative route until we realised that these delays were often 200 or 300 kilometers away and not likely to affect us but that the diversions would probably delay us more! wish it would say how far away the delays were!.
Slightly Disappointed Garmin Customer.. Pre ordered mine and very pleased that it arrive on day of release. Having previously had years of great service from a basic tomtom one i was a reluctant convert to garmin but so many bad reviews of latest tomtom products persuaded me to make the change. I really only wanted to add europe for a long driving holiday and the old tomtom didn't have that. I have lots of reservations however about this garmin not least of all was it failure to work properly after a couple of hours down the french motorway on day 1 of the two week drive through europe for which i had specifically bought it (i had previously done a trip to scotland and the west country and it was fine then) ! the unit froze on us whilst driving and then having switched off would not restart it just kept cycling through a start up screen and then off again, and no amount of button pushing would stop it. Several hours of internet searching that evening and pushing bits of the screen to try to do a master reset seemed to sort it out in the end but i had by then lost all the trip data for that part of the journey, and all my favourites all put in for the trip we were on! i was not happy at all. If we had been on our own on the trip with no web access we would have had a serious issue, fortunately we had friends with us to assist and get us back on track on that day. We had paper maps etc, but not so easy locating hotels in strange town with those is it. !a few more cons compared to my old and very basic tomtom. You can't get all the info you need on the main screen. I want to see the current time, the distance and time to my destination all at a glance, tomtom does it, garmin needs more presses of the screen to get all that. And i can't understand why they don't allow this, as you can customise the sidebar but you simply can't add the info to that i think you need. Very poor that. You should not need to touch the unit to get something as basic as the current time up. Update, this model now has all the info on the screen you need, a software update put that right a few months ago. It makes this a far more friendly unit to use now. Tomtom warms about toll roads etc when it plans a route, garmin doesn't. You can add them as 'avoidances' but it would be nice to get a warning beforehand. Tomtom give you options to customise the sound of alerts, no flexibility at all with garmin, you get what you a given. Pros. The ability to browse and zoom in and out of the maps is a lot better than on my old tomtom. And the overview map that shows mountains etc is a great way to get a feel for your trip and its then possibly to zoom right into the details of the route. Routing. Dodgy in my opinion, but aren't all sat navs! several times garmin has tried to take me off motorways for no apparent reason, or cut corners in small villages to take you down bumpy narrow back roads where its way better to carry on through on the main road. This garmin also has no option to set a route for walking, my old tomtom did, and so do older garmins so why not this one? particular stupid as it will remember where you parked your car if you need to find it but it then gives you driving directions back to it !beware if planning to use this somewhere like the alps as we did. It will lose reception in the numerous tunnels and narrow gorges. Ok i would expect it to do that but why then does it often show you miles away on the screen ? it knows you were on the road, it should know you were in a tunnel so why can it not just assume you are traveling along at a set speed on the same road. It can be very tricky when there is a junction just outside the tunnel as all routing is lost once it loses the sat signal and you just hope it gets it back quickly the other side. And why on earth does it not have toll booths shown on the maps ? a pretty important feature in my opinion, and would be very useful to know ones coming up so you can can get ready but nothing at all is shown. You can configure the side bar to show what's ahead. Its useful but why not somehow indicate if the petrol station for examlpe up ahead is on your route or off it ? you think one is coming up in a mile or so but in then disappears off the screen is it turns out its a few streets away and not on your actual route, not very helpful. Again tomtom does this better with on route and off route searching. Traffic warningsthese seem to work but as is often the case with such things they are usually a bit behind and hold ups and gone before you get there. Several dire warnings driving down through france of 90 min delays were ignored by me and traffic was heavy but moving and any delay was minimal, nothing like that predicted. No doubt not the fault of garmin that, but just a general warning on taking advice on such route diversions. Bluetooth. A bit disappointed that it will sync with my old nokia phone but not read the phonebook, so not much use for dialing out. Its strange because my old phone works fine in my audi with its own bluetooth it reads my phone book with no problem. Screen and instructions etc. I like the photo real junctions, lots of them on motorways across uk and europe, they do help. Lane guidance when you get it also helps. On occasions however especially on some roundabouts the arrow on the screen seems a bit fat and you lose clarity on the actual direction you need to go. It would be great to get an overview map of your route and progress along it with one touch, you can get it but it takes multiples screen touches to do it. I can't comment much on the voice instructions as most of my use has been in an open top car, and it not easy to hear them with the wind noise, and anyway i tend to rely on the screen by habitscreen attachment. Works fine for the most part but i have noticed you can get vibration through the car that will make the unit vibrate as well for a few seconds, (and that's worse in a sports car with stiff suspension) so mount not that solid, and if you are a bit heavy handed when pressing the screen the unit can move on the ball joint. Garmin basecamp. I have tried to use this to do routes on the pc but have found it very frustrating and fiddly to use and gave up. Tyre was a lot better and easy to set up waypoints to then create routes using that. Garmin casebought the genuine case as well. Nice and easy to use but does not fully enclose the unit as side are elasticated so i dropped it, and unit still got a dent on the corner, another garmin disappointment. So there you go. I did plan to send it back after it let me down but its been fairly good since then. But overall i am a disappointed garmin customer and wondering if i should have just forked out for new europe maps for my old faithful tomtom and saved a bit of cash!.
I'm In Love with My Gar!. Well i was afraid it wouldn't do all the things i wanted it to, but it does and does so much more besides. Its simply great at what it is and what it should do, especially setting up a multi stop journey, so easy so quick. It even remembers your favourite searches and places and next time they're just there waiting to be selected, it searches very quickly, it changes your route very quickly if you divert or miss a turn, and on the odd occasion there was traffic trouble it came up on the display. The 7 inch display is very clear and easy to use, and using the garmin universal dash mount (which is great too) you can place it in just the optimum position for un-obstructive yet easy glancing viewing. Its powered by a thicj cable from the cigarette lighter socket that also doubles as the traffic warning news aerial, so thats a little messy to sort out, but soon got used to it, especially as the device works so well and you start to fall in love with it. There is a little downside to it though, i found when in city centres and you approach very complex junctions, the car symbol can move a little too slowly and you think its pointing to one road when in fact it wants you on another, so i did miss a road or two, but that could be my error, but it soon re-calculates and gets you back on track again, in seconds. The other gripe was the traffic service, which did not warn of a major snarl up around a huge roundabout in preston that was being 'improved', hah, the works had clearly been going on for weeks and the traffic was backed up all over the place (had two major roads and motorway junction to sort out there), and yet it was not aware and so did not avoid the area, we drove straight in to the chaos. However, overall its a fantastic piece of kit and cannot recommend it highly enough. My only other experience of a satnav by the way is the one built into the dash of my honda cr-v, which is very good, but this garmin simply blows it away. .
Product Info
- Product Dimensions: 1.9 x 12.2 x 7.6 cm ; 154 g
- Boxed-product Weight: 399 g
- Batteries 1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)
- Item model number: 010-01124-28
- ASIN: B00C27EWFS
Conclusion of Garmin nuvi 2467LM 4
Purchased the week prior to going on holiday to the states, just in time to downloaded updated us maps, which did take a few hours but was well worth it. Sat nav worked minutes after arriving and got us everywhere we asked it to, and even round a diverted route owing to a road closure. The garmin was a replacement for a tom tom which we had purchased a couple of weeks prior but which wouldn't let us load up us maps. I've owned many garmin devices in the past but never a dedicated car 'satnav' - previously used an old garmin oregon which must be about 10 years old now (also own treking/outdoor hand-held garmin devices). This garmin (2597lmt) was a fantastic update: clear display, 3d maps, voice directions and easy destination entry.
Whilst en route, the 'up ahead' feature showed fuel, toilets and refreshments on the journey and the traffic delays were updated as we went (with the option to re-route to avoid). We bought this to replace our old garmin as we were about to go to poland, by road, for the first time. The only negative is that it sees delays on the route (anywhere on the 12 hour route) and asks you if you would like to take an alternative route. I have lots of reservations however about this garmin not least of all was it failure to work properly after a couple of hours down the french motorway on day 1 of the two week drive through europe for which i had specifically bought it (i had previously done a trip to scotland and the west country and it was fine then) .We had paper maps etc, but not so easy locating hotels in strange town with those is it.
I want to see the current time, the distance and time to my destination all at a glance, tomtom does it, garmin needs more presses of the screen to get all that. You should not need to touch the unit to get something as basic as the current time up. Update, this model now has all the info on the screen you need, a software update put that right a few months ago. Tomtom warms about toll roads etc when it plans a route, garmin doesn't. And the overview map that shows mountains etc is a great way to get a feel for your trip and its then possibly to zoom right into the details of the route.
Several times garmin has tried to take me off motorways for no apparent reason, or cut corners in small villages to take you down bumpy narrow back roads where its way better to carry on through on the main road. This garmin also has no option to set a route for walking, my old tomtom did, and so do older garmins so why not this one?. It knows you were on the road, it should know you were in a tunnel so why can it not just assume you are traveling along at a set speed on the same road. Again tomtom does this better with on route and off route searching. No doubt not the fault of garmin that, but just a general warning on taking advice on such route diversions.
It would be great to get an overview map of your route and progress along it with one touch, you can get it but it takes multiples screen touches to do it. Works fine for the most part but i have noticed you can get vibration through the car that will make the unit vibrate as well for a few seconds, (and that's worse in a sports car with stiff suspension) so mount not that solid, and if you are a bit heavy handed when pressing the screen the unit can move on the ball joint. Nice and easy to use but does not fully enclose the unit as side are elasticated so i dropped it, and unit still got a dent on the corner, another garmin disappointment. But overall i am a disappointed garmin customer and wondering if i should have just forked out for new europe maps for my old faithful tomtom and saved a bit of cash. Well i was afraid it wouldn't do all the things i wanted it to, but it does and does so much more besides. It even remembers your favourite searches and places and next time they're just there waiting to be selected, it searches very quickly, it changes your route very quickly if you divert or miss a turn, and on the odd occasion there was traffic trouble it came up on the display.
The 7 inch display is very clear and easy to use, and using the garmin universal dash mount (which is great too) you can place it in just the optimum position for un-obstructive yet easy glancing viewing. Its powered by a thicj cable from the cigarette lighter socket that also doubles as the traffic warning news aerial, so thats a little messy to sort out, but soon got used to it, especially as the device works so well and you start to fall in love with it. There is a little downside to it though, i found when in city centres and you approach very complex junctions, the car symbol can move a little too slowly and you think its pointing to one road when in fact it wants you on another, so i did miss a road or two, but that could be my error, but it soon re-calculates and gets you back on track again, in seconds. The other gripe was the traffic service, which did not warn of a major snarl up around a huge roundabout in preston that was being 'improved', hah, the works had clearly been going on for weeks and the traffic was backed up all over the place (had two major roads and motorway junction to sort out there), and yet it was not aware and so did not avoid the area, we drove straight in to the chaos. Brilliant sat nav, very fast, instant re-routes, clear display and good mapping.
My sat nav came with maps pre-installed, but i did refresh them with a free update soon after purchase, this probably was not necessary but did it as it was a free update. The whole process including updating all maps took under an hour, and could be left unattended while it updated. Phone loud, speed alerts quieter, and lots of other useful personalisation features. Live traffic connects ok with power lead supplied, but has not shown any traffic warning information during first three weeks of use, but perhaps this is just lucky because i live in the countryside and have not been on any very heavily congested roads recently. Speed camera alerts are good, there are very clear visual and audible warnings for most of the likely locations, but be warned just a few established locations are missing.
I subscribed to camera updates (only an annual subscription available for uk at about £16), now wish i had not bothered as so far it has made no difference, just as well have stayed with the pre-installed camera alerts. I installed the free garmin android app, this gave a good connection to my sat nav and was easy to install. I was disapopointed that some of the potentially very useful app feature on the phone such as parking, safety cameras, live traffic all needed additional subscriptions even though my satnav came with lifetime map updates and traffic. I bought this unit (garmin 2567lm) to replace my ageing road angel navigator 9000 (which was a good unit but sometimes was unreliable and subscriptions expensive and expired). I have only had the garmin unit for about a week but have covered over 400 miles with it.
The routes chosen are generally more sensible than the road angel although some errors do occur such as stating the wrong lane at junctions (the map (so far) shows the correct route). The garmin speed camera subscriptions (cyclops database) for the uk is only £17/year (still to be purchased). Positives:- quick to register on the garmin express website, however the initial map/software update did take about 2-2. 5 hours but was easy to do (windows 7 with ie 10 + 13mbps broadband), just followed on screen instructions and did not use the pc for anything else during the update process. 5gb of 7gb) this is for uk and w europe with one map update (done on purchase), not sure if it adds to memory usage each time you update or replaces it so it may not take many updates before you need an external micro sd card (slot in bottom of unit) to expand the memory, will need to see if this is the case - especially as this is a lifetime map updates product.
- routes are usually sensible including use of high speed (60/70 mph) a roads where applicable as opposed to just sticking to motorways with long detours as my old unit always insisted on. - mapping is quite clear with auto zoom en route, you can also choose uk road colours (motorways blue, a roads green, secondary a roads red etc. - you can display 'total distance to go' in navigation map display mode. - over speed warning - a couple of beeps and the displayed current speed goes red, speed limit is also displayed (not 100% accurate though)- speed camera warning - you can select audio warring in the stet up menu, if done so it beeps when you are near the safety camera/zone (~0. 2 miles), if you are below the speed limit only one audio warning is made on approach but the visual details are displayed in top right hand corner of screen (in red) and on moving map (red camera symbol displayed in position on the road), if you are above the limit it beeps fairly regularly to remind you (as well as the visual display), the higher your speed the more urgent and frequent the beeps.
A Great Sat Nav. This sat nav is a little on the expensive side, but you get clear mapping, accurate find profile, memory function for your commonly used locations. It has traffic updates and the best bit (which i didn't actually realise it had) was that you can use your phone hands-free through the bluetooth function -amazing and very useful. The only down side (minor irritation only) is that you have to fully charge it for 12-24 hours before using it, otherwise it turns the contrast too low to be read (20%) in day-light, this could have been clearer in the minimal instructionsotherwise recharge & use or plug in and use in the cigarette lighter. Note: do not be tempted to use 3rd party leads / double sockets with the unit in the car otherwise it doesn't work!.
Latest Unit But Not So Hot Software. Unit and menusthe unit is strong and light - nice to hold, good quality. Bracket and charger well designed, no problems. The menu layout is very clear and easy to use, but remember the `three-bar' menu button is a context button that gives options depending on what is being displayed. That is the go-to button if you can't find an option. Although the big `where to' button seems simple enough and conventional for all satnavs, if you plan trips these do not appear under `where to', but `apps'. It may just be me, but the memory of items (places you went to before) on the device - aka favourites - is very haphazard. You need to house-keep the memory on the device via basecamp regularly to avoid chaos. I did not opt for a model with voice control but this might have been useful. We did not go for this due to the laughable results we seem to get from phones. The pitch and reality are woefully different. Zooming in and out is easy but should not be done on the move for safety reasons. Driving navigationsorry to be negative to garmin - who i guess are the same as rivals navman and tomtom, so these issues could apply to them too. Except that i had a navman i bought 2 or 3 years ago and had no problems with navigation at all. In that time no progress seems to have been made!all the hype about `real talk' where the device says `turn right at the bakery' is pointless distraction and only marginally useful compared to all the issues i list below. Where you can see the junction and know the road, you don't really need a satnav do you? but it lets you down continually when you are tired and in a strange town. The motorway junctions are good guidance - a picture is shown and the lanes are clearly called out/shown. But often it waits to the last minute to tell you which lane to get in, and even driving below the speed limit you often have only seconds to take the right road. Says nothing at the junction you are approaching but tells you what to do in 0. 5 km. You need to pay close attention to the type of junction it describes, and get good at judging distance. A glance at the unit will tell you the type of junction and how far to go - but be warned that you may pass many junctions and signs before that (that you are meant to take no action at). In a city it is easy to panic and take a turning too soon. In the modern world there are often roads at freeway speeds and yet complex city junctions with fly-overs tunnels and so on. These have existed for decades but the human interface of satnav does not seem to be able to handle these (do the software designers actually drive cars?)says 'enter roundabout' - which does not give you a clue what lane to be in. After my first few weeks i am still regularly being mis-directed because directions on roundabouts /junctions are not clear/timely. The map does not help as it is too confusing to match what you see on the road in the split-second you have to decide what to do. You need the 'map' of the roundabout before you get to it, but the `birds eye' view is too `wide' and the road representation is too thick on screen relative to reality. This may be simply a reflection of the price-point to encourage you to buy a premium service. The destination (waypoint) is all that matters to the unit (whereas planning on basecamp allows you to choice the exact roads you drive down). But it is still hard to make it choose a route you want - a route selector is available if there are multiple possibilities but often there is only one option. You cannot modify a route on the unit (in terms of the roads used). You can only select /create waypoints. This means that following scenic routes is best planned on basecamp. Voices - irritating preppy english voices, based on a kind of computer algorithm that makes up words from the letters it contains. Laughable french pronunciation in fact is impossible to understand even well-known town names - considering the unit covers the whole of europe this would make it a serious problem if you were covering a lot of different countries. You literally have no clue what they are saying. (it may be better to select the local voice and learn the phrases in the local language that mean `keep right' etc). This is inefficient and dangerous for you as you then have to look at the unit to read the road/junction name. Road options - i switched 'unpaved ' option off but it still took us down this type of road ! it takes you down impossibly small roads, through villages and housing estates instead of the main road, and tries to take you down tiny lanes that are dead ends or private/residential. The mapping is comprehensive but the people who code the algorithms for driving seem to have very small 4x4s and no regard for the privacy of land - and expect you to drive your shiny hire car (for instance) down a narrow lane with thorn bushes either side - just to save 30 seconds on the route. Even if you set the `motorway' preference to maximum. Rerouting - a major problem in the real world is also that the unit doesn't tell you when you are going wrong but simply recalculates - this is good for wandering around where you don't care what road you are on - but in many cases you simply want to turn round and regain the route that you planned - not an alternative. But psychologically it is very un-nerving to be going in the opposite direction to your destination and not be told to turn round. (a problem with all satnavs is that coming out of an underground carpark it takes a while for the satellites to be regained - by which time you may be obliged to simply go in any direction - in a town with a one way system this is a recipe for misery). On the other hand when you encounter a real blockage there does not seem to be a way to indicate which road is blocked. It seems to infer this from the fact you took another road. But due to the lack of feedback i'm not sure. If you look at the unit it says `recalculating' briefly but that is all. Long story short you still need to study a map and know your route by heart if you want to stay on the most efficient route (i. E. Get there on time!). Speed warning - it would be very useful to have an audible signal for speed limit change but this doesn't seem to be available. Also i can't see the speed limit display clearly - the icon/ font too small. While there is a separate `virtual dashboard' display this does not show the speed limit (!) but items of data that are only useful when stationary. Another major beef is that it doesn't help you start a journey from where you are exactly but simply says 'go to marked route'! - as if it can't be bothered to help you drive down a track/small road /car park at this stage - but happy to send you into the boondocks at any point thereafter! this is the whole point of a satnav - when you are in a strange place, maybe tired and don't have a mental map of the roads around you - the icon of your car on the device is meant to point in the same direction you are actually pointing, but in fact you really have to think `where am i' to make this small step to `the marked route'. (my 3 year old navman started me off from anywhere without a problem - even off the highway). Other users have commented that the unit is too slow to update in towns and gives conflicting and confusing instructions. I agree - and in particular it gives street names which is pointless as you can't know what the name of the street is in a strange town. (even a pedestrian would struggle with this!). This is not a unit problem but the understanding of the premium navigation company in the world not apparently knowing what it is like to drive in a strange town alone - perhaps at night. Absolutely ridiculous. Maybe you simply can't get a good system without spending £250? i. E. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic. Or maybe the science is not advanced enough yet. But there may be a simpler explanation - that if you pay ford prices you won't get a jaguar. Maps - others have commented on the map updating, but i purposely chose a recent unit so i did not have to submit myself to the trauma of downloading a new map; i haven't had a problem with mapping. You can't expect the device to magically know if a road-works is in progress or when a new roundabout has been built. Which brings me to `user map updates'. Personally when i am driving to a meeting i do not stop and write down a mapping error so that i can help garmin. But there is no button on the device to help me do this either - you cannot press on the screen and say `there is something here' to remind you later (although you can press the screen to navigate to a specific point). This is an oversight if they expect the users to be their unpaid `updating workforce'. Otherwise i expect the map updates to be the result of a team of professionals. I don't think garmin or their competitors can rely on users to fill the gap where google has such a head-start in terms of data accuracy and integration. Secondary features - pois. A generic problem with no quality information about restaurants (all satnavs are the same in this regard) - so relying on a poi without doing prior research is a big gamble. And unlike mapping (which is good and up to date) pois suffer from poor reliability - i. E. Restaurants don't exist!hands-free phone (bluetooth) - i paired my phone easily but have not used it yet. I think the unit will use the phone contact list but i have not tried this either. Traffic - not tested. Other types of journey (e. G. Walking ,cycling) - not tested. Planning on basecampbasecamp (bc) is excellent software functionally - lots of good features and does what you want and what you would expect. But it has issues in terms of user experience that really should be addressed with a re-coding update: the logic of use is sometimes compromised by perhaps programming limitations, making it slightly less intuitive than one might expect. It appears bc is designed to satisfy all gps users not just drivers but cyclists and walkers etc. You must connect the device to your pc to use basecamp as it uses the device maps and the device navigation computer algorithms to plan routes. The map has a graphic quality of 10 years ago compared (say) to google maps, which was shocking initially but you get used to zooming in and out constantly to figure out where you are - and using google maps at the same time to get some clarity. I guess this is due to the limit of data space on the device (and in fact matches the mapping on the device. )(note i do not use bing as life is too short, but there are alternatives to google maps. Michelin, mappy etc. )following guidance online you can choose and modify the roads you go down - directly on the map - and you can import and export routes/tracks from/to google maps. (i have not done this but i have imported kml files with waypoints no problem). Baffling menu with 'trip' planner unable to be modified in terms of the order of waypoints/items in the main screen. Then you must create a route (in alphabetical order) and then you open the route and then are allowed to re-order the items to create a logical trip. What programmer thought this up??the primary concept in bc is the use of lists. This allows you to have an item of data (say a waypoint) in one folder and yet refer to it - copy it - as an item in other folders/lists. This is a useful concept but it's difficult to understand what is the original and what is the copy. Unless you know which the original is, you can't move it (you end up making more and more copies). In fact my use of the word `copy' is wrong - these duplicate items are more like windows shortcuts, which you can safely remove without deleting the original. The system tries to recalculate routes if you change something - irritating since it uses the device to do the route calculation and is thus very slow. (you can cancel this to save time, but still seems like programming at beta stage). The unit itself has a magic `optimise route' feature which i have not tried but will apparently take a number of waypoints and determine the most efficient route between them. This is bizarrely not apparently available on basecamp (unless i missed it). A waypoint and a searched item can be used interchangeably - a bit messy. (it makes you wonder what the point of the term waypoint is). If you mistakenly select an item (called `place') on the map as a waypoint after already having it saved elsewhere (perhaps in a previous trip), it will create a new waypoint called place1. So you must manage your waypoints carefully, naming them and selecting them. . Or could end up with 10 copies of the same place. Because:. When searching, bc will search all the public data before your data - and searching on the device takes a long time. (in fact i have never seen a personal item selected since the amount of public data is so huge). It does not seem possible to change the order of search, but you can opt to search only a subset of the data - for instance private data only - but that implies you need to search twice - once to see if you already have that `thing' and then again if you don't already have it. Post-trip on basescampbc has to be synced with the device manually - and creates confusing folders related to the date of sync (so you seem to end up with multiple copies of what's on the device - except that tracks you have created are not duplicated?). In short, it's a mess - a mess that the user has to spend time and effort to sort out. Its hard to tell what is an original item or a `shortcut'. But at least you know have a complete backup of your stuff - and you can see where you have been in terms of both waypoints (places) and trips - aka tracks. I love data and intend to fully use the ability to document tracks (tracking works whenever the device is on, and you don't have to plan a route to track any journey). You can easily export tracks to excel, say. Last little glitch - bc scans your pc for devices so if you pop in a camera card it appears in the bc menu list. Slightly worrying. There are other features i have not explored - adventures, and photo integration. Summaryit works same as a 3 year old navman at a similar price, but is a slicker faster unit. Pc software basecamp has good functionality for both planning routes and saving tracks. Note the reason i had to upgrade is that my old navman could not get map upgrades (even if i paid money), so i had to have a new unit. But whether this one is better than navman or tomtom or whether this unit is better than others in the range remains to be seen. Scores high on a nice gadget to own, but pretty low on its function - getting me somewhere without literally going round the houses. Personally i love satnavs and gps but the only reason they still exist is that smartphones went on a little design detour of their own when they went to touchscreen. In a couple of years the shear power of google maps will kill off all but the most specialised satnavs as your phone will be powerful enough to give you turn by turn navigation and hands-free phone and so on. But the crucial failure of standalone satnav is that it can't know what standard a restaurant is, what time it opens, whether the petrol station is selling cheap fuel, etc. It is this integration and richness of data that people consider routine on their phones, that is missing on a satnav unit. So i give the unit 9/10, basecamp 7/10 for messy design (needs a major update), and the navigation mapping `system' gets 5/10 for working just about but requiring a lot of user effort and stress. .
B00C27EWFS#amazon.co.uk
